Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

CWSA 27

Fragment ID: 7338

Sri Aurobindo’s Critical Comments on Poetry Written in the Ashram [6]

Originally you said [of a certain poem], “it is a fine poem” but when I asked whether that meant any inferiority to those you had designated as “very fine” or “very good” etc., you answered “No.” Does that imply that I might add “very” here also?

Really, I don’t measure my appreciations or rather my impressions in the dreadfully professorial way you suggest. What is wrong with “fine”? A fine poem is not worth keeping?

11 May 1936